Abstract
Residual strains in ferroelectrics are known to adversely affect the material properties by aggravating crack growth and fatigue degradation. The primary cause for residual strains is strain incompatibility between different microstructural entities. For example, it was shown in polycrystalline ferroelectrics that residual strains are caused due to incompatibility between the electric-field-induced strains in grains with different crystallographic orientations. However, similar characterization of cause-effect in multidomain ferroelectric single crystals is lacking. In this article, we report on the development of plastic residual strains in [111]-oriented domain engineered BaTiO3 single crystals. These internal strains are created due to strain incompatibility across 90°domain walls between the differently oriented domains. The average residual strains over a large crystal volume measured by in situ neutron diffraction is comparable to previous X-ray measurements of localized strains near domain boundaries, but are an order of magnitude lower than electric-field-induced residual strains in polycrystalline ferroelectrics.
Original language | English |
---|---|
Article number | 929 |
Journal | Scientific Reports |
Volume | 2 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - 2012 |
Funding
The neutron scattering measurements were carried out at the Spallation Neutron Source, which is operated with the support from the Division of Scientific User Facilities, Office of Basic Energy Sciences, US Department of Energy, under Contract No. DE-AC05-00OO22725 with UT-Battelle, LLC. Funding from a Laboratory Directed Research and Development Fund of Oak Ridge National Laboratory is acknowledged. JJ, DG, and GT acknowledge support for their contributions from the National Science Foundation through award number DMR-0746902 and the Department of the Army under contract number W911NF-09-1-0435. The authors also acknowledge technical assistance from Andre A. Parizzi and Daniel Maierhafer on High Voltage experimental setup.